INTERACT FORUM

While we are at it, how about making all window elements of MC movable & resizable so the user can truly customize MC to his or her liking.

There was a pretty wonderful jukebox program a couple of years back called Siren Express that was so very flexible that every element of the GUI could be repositioned & resized.

I used it for about a year or so & found it to be truly wonderful as I could make it look just like I wanted it.

Having to use a program in only one way like MC is not what I call user friendly (does that expression still exist?).

knickelfarz,

this definitely gets my vote.... so now lets hope it gets jriver's vote too ;-)

two things for finetuning it:
- add a button on the toolbar that toggles split mode
- make that 'status line' on top of the lower frame a buttonbar that holds buttons like favorites and a quick play lookalike... (and of course playing now)

Ingo

How about this... On those bars across the tops of your Playing Now\Playlist and Media Library panes... Those are actually drop down boxes much like in Windows Common File Dialog boxes, so that you can pick what node of the tree shows up in which pane.

knickelfarz, great stuff! You've truly captured how awesome that split feature would be.

First of all, to knickelfarz, how the heck do you make such awesome pictures? I can see how some of them could be made with great difficulty by manual image editing, but what about the non-existant shots of the split screen? Amazing. I'd just like to know.

Disregarding this personal mystery, looking at these pictures and trying the new MC 9.1 gives me an incredible feeling of joy for the future. With such a deeply involved and helpful user (fan!) base and a super-human team of coders, designers, and troubleshooters at J River, Media Center has truly become the most amazing media player to ever exist, and will continue to advance at a pace unmatched by any other software project. I still can't figure out why it's not that every computer with at least 1 MP3 has Media Center installed. We have to proselytize.

I of course agree with having the split windows have drop-down lists. Just make sure "Handheld" is on the list (along with "Burner"). Also, as I find having to right-click on dividers annoying, I agree there should be a toolbar button.

Maybe there could be something where you can display a sub-tree (or sub-list) of the main tree in the top window. I could have a "Genre" view scheme in the left tree and configure the top split-window to show a list of artists in that genre. Clicking on a genre would update the list of artists, and clicking on an artist would update the list of tracks in the bottom view. It would add a lot of flexibility, as there's only so far a tree can go and still be useful.

i wish that you move the play control in the bottom and the toolbar buttons in the top
and also the play controls i wish it to be in the bottom as a toolbar and we can use from view a toolbar mode that leaves the play controls in a ruler over the start menu and cannot be moved (just like realone player)

Matt,
I think the best idea that has come about so far is the idea of VS.NET style interface with movable/dockable toolbars etc.  Is this a possibility or would it involve too mcuh of a reprogramming effort?  It would be nice to be able to dock the properties window to the right hand side if we so choose and also to be able to have it auto hide like the tool box in VS.  When the app went into full screen mode it could simply auto hide all the bars but they would still be accessible if necessary by hovering over the correct area of the screen.  Also are you likely to update the transport controls that appear in Full Screen mode?  The new transport is really nice but the one in Full Screen now looks very outdated in comparison.  Kinda like a WMP style scroll down or if not to directly copy maybe a fade in...

Just a few thoughts

Adam

I don't think I would like to see MC go down the real one route.  I'm afraid I got tired of Real Ones interface very quickly

Adam

The latest beta has support for greyed out toolbar images and has a playing now in the file properties area.

Thanks for the ideas!

Thank you all for the lovely replies and the feedback - the JRiver forum is quit great!

Special Thanks to Matt - You're really fast  
I saw the "ToolbarInactive.bmp" stored in "Default Art" folder. Let me make one more suggestion: If the image should stay there in the future, it should be really "GREYed out" to fit better to the background of different skins (it's something more purple right now). If it would be placed in the skins folder, it could be edited to be more suitable for every skin...
And Matt - It's so nice to see those toolbar buttons up there again  

The "Playing Now" in the properties area is quite a good idea! It could be used to prepare playlists, for example, something that will spare a lot of time and switching around ... A great start to get closer to something like "split view". But I had some more things in mind, when I thought about what to reach with the "split view". So I would like to go a step back and continue with my considerations  


I of course agree with all of you about the missing pulldown menues to select what is to be shown in the panes. But these pictures were just some quick sketches - made from screenshots edited with some copy, paste and pixel pushing under a magnifying glass :-)

Doof suggested to handle the "...drop down boxes much like in Windows Common File Dialog boxes, so that you can pick what node of the tree shows up in which pane." I'm afraid that this would be too close to be a duplicate of the tree and that maybe some people would like to select things that are not available in the tree.
I also think those pulldowns should not only influence what is displayed but also the way how it's shown. Therefore I would chose a "normal" pulldown and add some submenus to the pulldown to select even the "style" (for items were it would make sense). Here is an example:

Bigger picture here:
http://www.knickelfarz.privat.t-online.de/mc_gui/pane_pulldown.htm

Choosing the "Standard" item could reflect the "normal" behavior of MC when browsing in the tree (like the "Automatic" option for list styles).
Choosing "Tree items", "Visualisation", "DSP Studio" or "Tools" will allow to set up the desired pane view.

I tried to make a list of all items that could be there in the menu (and submenues), but it would be too long to show it as text here - please take a look here:
http://www.knickelfarz.privat.t-online.de/mc_gui/pulldown_list.htm

I guess you will figure out that there are still some things missing in the list :-)

Maybe you will wonder "What are all those list styles for??"
Well, at the moment, only "Cover + Album" and "List Only" can be shown in MC. But I can't stop dreaming about being able to select from more list styles like "Cover + Album Details" (great for browse through collections and select tracks right from there...)

Bigger picture here:
http://www.knickelfarz.privat.t-online.de/mc_gui/list_style_1.htm


Doof, Nila and JoshuaHorowitz already made some hints at interaction between the panes and the tree or nodes of the tree. Using the "split view", this interaction becomes an important point as it leads us to some major questions:

- What happens to my choosen views in the panes when clicking somewhere in the tree? Will they be remembered?
- Which pane is influenced by the tree? Can I influence both at the same time? Can this be configured?
- How can I avoid conflicts between tree and pane views?

I'm afraid that the possibilities that can be reached with the "split view" would be half useless if it would be necessary to set up the pane views again and again ... So there has to be something to store the pane views, link them to nodes of the tree and to give the user only useful choices to select from. I will try to make some suggestions how to manage this...   (as always, help is welcome!)

Maybe you have noticed the pulldown item "Link View To Tree Node" in the pulldown example. Selecting this item would open a dialog box like this:

Bigger picture here:
http://www.knickelfarz.privat.t-online.de/mc_gui/node_properties.htm

The preselected node of the tree in the "Node View Properties" dialog maybe placed to reflect the pane where the focus is currently set to (if possible/making sense...). You can now select the preselected or another node and click OK. Maybe you want to link your current pane view to a new node below one of the main nodes in the tree, so you can select one of these and click the "New Node" button.

After confirmation of the "Node View Properties" dialog another dialog box opens - it's an extended version of the known "View Scheme Properties" dialog (if "New Node" was selected, some fields of this maybe be empty at this moment...):

Bigger picture here:
http://www.knickelfarz.privat.t-online.de/mc_gui/view_properties.htm

Within the "View Scheme Properties" you can now see your pane views at a "save place" and finish the process. From now on, every pane view setting is linked to a node in the tree and can therefore be accessed via the tree.

Of course, these "pane view schemes" would also be able to be edited or even made directly from the tree by opening the "View Scheme Properties" from there (maybe more for experts...).

This all means, that there will maybe the chance to make even the tree more configurable by using the "split view". For example, there could not only be "Find CD" and "Artist Info" below the "Playing Now" node but also "Artist Info + Libary", so you can do a search at allmusic.com in the upper pane to compare something with your library in the lower pane...

I know that there are still some items at issue with the described process to make "split view" fly ... but maybe it's an acceptable takeoff point :-)

JRiver... hire this man!!!  

That sounds like a fantastic suggestion knickelfarz.  That would solve one of my issues which I presented in the bug thread about the inconsistency of the album grouping feature.  If we could have a cover + details view this would eradicate this.  At the moment Artists with multiple albums show album thumbs but artists with single albums show track thumbs.  This cover art + details view would make things a lot more consistent.  In fact I think I would probably use something like this as my default view for most of my schemes

Adam

NoCodeUK,

I know that the columns can be tailored - I have already done so!

I just wondered if the extraneous entries are going to be removed from the options.  Not exactly a shattering difference, I know.

I now was able to load up the missing pictures to my homespace - sorry for the delay, please look again at my last post

JRiver... hire this man!!!  

LOL - There's no need for that, they already have a stunning team at JRiver - much more skilled than I am!!! Anyhow, after reading through the "What makes a good bar?" thread I decided to stay in Berlin for sure - Cheers!  

Wow - this is exciting stuff! I too am excited about all these potential "list styles" as suggested by Knickelfarz but why limit it to album views.

For finding artists (compared with finding albums) you might show :
1 Image of artist
2 Bios of artist (expandable)
then album details, then track details.


For all those "genre freaks" (yes I'm one) a list style might include a description of the genre then artists, then album, then track details. This description would be useful for unfamiliar users.

Going silly, a list style for searching by year might include a description of major hits/influences for that year.

That is basically breaking down Media Library (audio) list style options beyond album first priority.

Sorry, no fancy pictures.

... why limit it to album views.

For finding artists (compared with finding albums) you might show :
1 Image of artist
2 Bios of artist (expandable)
then album details, then track details.

Quite good idea ... This leads me back to an idea I had some days ago when I was thinking about what to do with those "calculated fields". I was thinking about something I would call "Media Links"... Here is an example for Artists:

When the database is searched to build up a list view for audio tracks, it also searches in the artist fields of image and video files. If there are matching results, these are counted. After the search the list view is build up with a new column named "Artist Media Links". In this column the counted results for other media files are displayed as links:

Bigger picture here:
http://www.knickelfarz.privat.t-online.de/mc_gui/medialink.htm

By selecting one of the links, the list view changes and displays the linked images (in this case maybe covers of Bob Dylan Albums and old pictures of him you collected in the sixties...) or a list with videos (in this case maybe some weird TV shows with Captain Beefheart you once recorded).

Again, there are endless possibilities  

I just had another idea.  I will try and do a mock up but until then...I just felt I had to share it first.  One of the comments about 9.0 was that the image support wasn't quite there yet.  9.1 has gone some way towards remedying that as we can now use dat fields properly but using knicelfarz split panes ideas what about a split pane image view?  Thumbs in the top pane.  Large version of selected image in the bottom.  Hover over the large image and a toolbar appears like the one in IE when you hover over an image with options to resize, rotate, email or send to ftp website

Just a thought!!



www.jriver.com/photos/NoCodeUK/MC9GUIImage.jpg

The icons are a bit ropey but they give you the idea and I did not update the status bar or info at top.  Proof of concept and all that

Also notice image info pane where cover art was displayed.

Adam

PS Thanks to knickelfarz for reducing the size of my Pic!

Adam, you seem to have some small play controls at the bottom right of your task bar. They don't look like the standard WMP9 buttons. What program are they from?

It would be superb if MC9.1 could have a task bar toolbar like you've shown. I have tried to get a colleague to use MC9 and he said that he would only consider using it if it had one of these tool bars. There are a lot of people who like this feature of WMP9.

He He.  I had forgotten about that.  That is my own MC toolbar that I made.  I designed the icons myself (hence the lameness! )  It is basically just a windows Taskbar toolbar that points to a folder containing shortcuts to MCC Commands.  The first icon launches MC then there is a play, stop, next, previous and volume up/down.  It allows me to minimize MC to the tray and still control it.  I did not know how to add a display so at the moment it is control only.  I can send you the shortcuts if you're interested.

Adam

Nope...very easy to do the toolbar although I cannot help you with the display thing as I couldn't do that.  I basically have two folders in my docs one called MC Icons and one called MC Toolbar.  You can probably guess what each one is for  Once you have the folders set up create an icon for each command and place it in the Icons folder.  Then put shortcuts to the commands in the toolbar folder so for example the shortcut to the play command would be mjextman.exe /MCC 10000,0 (I think that is it, this is off the top of my head.  Check the MCC reference).  For each shortcut change the icon to the one you want from the MC Icons folder.  Once you have shortcuts to all the commands you want right clcik the task bar and select Toolbars/New Toolbar...  Tell it you want a custom folder and then browse to the MC Toolbar folder.  Bingo....

It was actually from seeing your Nplayer Post that I came up with the idea.  it is really juist like the quick launch toolbar only all the shortcuts point to MCC commands.

Hope this helps

Adam

Nice one phil.  The icons are better than my lameo efforts.  I had to design them in paint as it was the only thing I had that would save out to .ico and it didn't save the alpha information properly...

Adam

Hey Adam,
U can save them as .bmp's as long as u save them indexed with the windows pallete then just rename them - I know photoshop does it, not sure what other programs - most decentish paint ones I'd imagine would do it.

This would be a VERY clever work around for MC if it offered to install the MC task bar controls - it could just do exactly what you've done but automate it with the installation and use some professional done graphics - it would make MC appear to duplicate WMP which would impress a LOT of people - What'd you say Matt? Fancy impressing everyone? (even more)

Yeah Id quite happily sell my idea

Adam

Bleh! The more I look at this version, the more I despise it.

Playing Now is way to big. There has to be a better use of screen real estate then what is currently playing. I already know the songs. I put them there in the first place. And don't give me crap about when someone else is using my computer at a party. That is not an everyday occurance, and wouldn't happen anyway. Search would be better implemented there then the tiny slot it is shoved into now. Regardless if it grows with string.

Toolbars are not natural. Some at the top. Some at the bottom. To much mouse movement for something that should be more logically grouped.

File properties was better on the right side where it could be extended to the left fully if needed. It was a one click deal. Now there is another pane seperator that you have to fumble with for the same view. Want real improvements? Use tabbed views instead. They work. This looks like some wannabe came up with a cruel joke for usability.

Here's an idea.

1. Resize Playing Now so it's not so big.
2. Clear out the toolbar buttons from the bottom and put them at the top.
3. Resize the Properties box to the size you want.

With the prototype Media Library scrolling trees are less of an issue, so you can slide the File Properties box up much farther without interfering with the tree.